Game of Thrones Season 5 Episode 1 Recap (Part 2)

This is part two of my episode recap and review for Game of Thrones this week. Spoiler warning for this week’s episode of the show, but just like yesterday, we won’t be talking about the books.

Let’s start back at the wall, where Jon Snow has to deal with Stannis Baratheon.

Things are a little bit weird with the Night’s Watch right now. You might remember their Lord Commander, Jeor Mormont, was killed a while ago.

They haven’t elected a new leader to take his place yet, but Janos Slynt is the acting commander right now.

Yet Stannis Baratheon and Melisandre, the Red Lady, are talking and conversing with Jon Snow all the time. So Slynt probably isn’t very happy about that.

Stannis asking Jon to talk to Mance Rayder, though, isn’t about internal Night’s Watch politics—it’s because Jon and Mance are friendly with each other. And as a friend, watching Jon try to convince Mance Rayder to bend the knee to Stannis was a little heartbreaking.

You have to remember that Mance united all the northern tribes. He’s made other chieftans bend the knee to HIM before. So it’s a little hypocritical of him to refuse to do it now.

But Mance was able to unite his people, BECAUSE that’s who he is. He’s the guy who doesn’t back down—he makes YOU back down. Only now he can’t, because Stannis has the Lord of Light on his side.

In the long run I do think Mance Rayder made a mistake, but if he’d done anything else, he wouldn’t be Mance Rayder.

There are probably going to be some consequences from Jon putting Mance out of his misery on the funeral pyre, but maybe not the way we think. Stannis really just wants the Wildlings to fight for him.

Now that Jon has, probably, earned the Wildlings respect by showing mercy, I think we’re probably going to see Stannis try to use Jon to win the Wildlings over to his side.

The only other plotlines in this episode were relatively minor—big characters, but not a lot happening with them.

Sansa Stark and Littlefinger dropped off Lord Robin Arryn with Lord Yohn Royce, to watch over him while Littlefinger goes to do…I don’t know, whatever creepy psychopathic maybe-pedophiles do when they’re not being super creepy.

Littlefinger said he’s taking Sansa to a land so far away that Cersei Lannister won’t be able to touch her. It’s hard to tell exactly what he means, and I actually don’t remember if this was covered in the books.

First, it could be Winterfell. It’s super far away from King’s Landing, and it’s Sansa’s home.

But the Lannisters controls the Boltons, and they control Winterfell, so it hardly seems safe. And I don’t think Littlefinger would bring Sansa within a hundred miles of that little psychopath Ramsay Snow.

Dorne is also really far away, and mostly out of reach of King’s Landing.

But we haven’t seen much to establish that Littlefinger has friends in Dorne, and traveling that way would bring him really close to King’s Landing, so that seems unlikely.

He could take her even further north, maybe even to the Wall. And that, I think, is the most likely thing for him to do.

He knows Jon Snow is with the Night’s Watch. So he might be relying on Jon’s willingness to protect Sansa, who’s basically his sister.

And specifically his wording of “Cersei Lannister cannot touch you” could easily be a reference to the fact that the Night’s Watch are beyond the command of the King and Queen in King’s Landing.

Finally we see Brienne and Podrick on the side of the road, literally just yards away as Sansa passes them, unawares.

Brienne doesn’t really know what to do with herself now, and she’s sick of Podrick following her around.

But Podrick’s a loyal guy, and he’s not going to leave her just because she’s grumpy. I do know what happens to them in the book, and it’s going to be a lot of fun to see in this season of the show.

So that’s it for this week’s episode of Game of Thrones. I’ll be covering it after each week’s episodes, so stick around.

Three questions today: What do you think Stannis will do to Jon Snow? What does Littlefinger have planned for Sansa? And what do you think’s going to happen to Brienne and Podrick?

If you’ve read the books—no cheating.

As always, thank you for watching, Rebels, and I will see you tomorrow. Maybe. Byyye.

Over 100,000 readers have read and loved Garrett's books, like the fantasy hits Nightblade and Midrealm. He's also a film festival favorite with movies like Unsaid, and a tech guru who posts lots of helpful how-tos for writers and filmmakers over at garrettbrobinson.com.